‘I had to think about Andrew Tate. That was miserable’: 150 years of masculinity, all in one play

Revered for her work on Succession and Normal People, Alice Birch has now written an era-spanning play about men, novels and the manosphere. Give me a Brontë any day, she says

‘There’s a basic decency among British people’: Hope Not Hate’s Nick Lowles on how to defeat the far right

Lowles has spent his entire adult life organising against fascism, facing countless threats as a result. He discusses the street confrontations of the 80s, foiling a murder plot, Nazi satanists – and the urgent need for optimism and action

‘I was writing at my lowest ebb’: Scottish author Len Pennie on domestic abuse and the power of poetry

Len Pennie won praise and faced criticism for exploring domestic abuse in her award-winning debut. She talks about partying sober, writing in Scots, and why she’s rooting out stigma in her follow-up collection

‘I’ve seen so many people go down rabbit holes’: Patricia Lockwood on losing touch with reality

The Priestdaddy author on quitting social media, Maga conspiracies and how her second novel grew out of a period of post-Covid mania

Bunny author Mona Awad: ‘I’m a dark-minded soul’

The author’s surreal, satirical breakout novel won her awards and tattooed superfans. As she releases a follow-up, she talks about growing up as an outsider – and the best advice she received from Margaret Atwood

‘I never hold back’: Sally Mann on her controversial family photos and becoming a writer

The celebrated US photographer was catapulted into America’s culture wars with her photobook Immediate Family. Now she’s written a book of ‘how not-to’ advice for artists

‘He fondly called me his hash baby’: Mandy Sayer on her larger-than-life father – a lawbreaking jazz musician who couldn’t read or write

Gerry Sayer was a warm, funny yet absent father, so consumed with music that he sacrificed family – but his ‘flair for improvisation’ inspired his writer daughter

Slow Horses author Mick Herron: ‘I love doing things that are against the rules’

As the hit thriller returns to our screens, its creator talks about false starts, surprise inspirations – and why he never looks inside Jackson Lamb’s head

‘You’re either getting punched or going skinny dipping’: Swedish indie star Jens Lekman on playing 132 weddings of his fans

He once sang, ‘if you ever need a stranger to sing at your wedding ... then I am your man’. Couples took him at his word. Now, he’s turned the experience into an album and novel

‘Europe is the core – America joined as an offshoot’: the historian challenging what ‘the west’ means

Was the ‘western alliance’ dreamt up to further American and British interests? Georgios Varouxakis argues that the idea is older, quintessentially European, and even anti-imperialist

‘You’re the only port of call for 400 hospital patients, which is absurd’: Matthew Hutchinson on the perils of life as an NHS doctor

He’s a rheumatologist, a standup comedian – and now the author of a memoir. He talks about racism in healthcare, why Covid was the only time urgent care was properly staffed – and his beef with cardiologists

‘I have no interest in the white gaze any more’: Randa Abdel-Fattah on Gaza, boycotts and her new novel

Discipline follows a journalist and an academic navigating censorship in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza – an issue the author is no stranger to herself

‘Literature can be a form of resistance’: Lea Ypi talks to Elif Shafak about writing in the age of demagogues

The Albanian author of Free and the Turkish novelist discuss the rise of populism, censorship – and how today’s conflicts all come from the unresolved trauma of the past

‘Pink Floyd were my landscape. I was a hippy’: Pierce Brosnan revisits his old London haunts

The former 007 and current star of The Thursday Murder Club goes for a stroll in London’s Camden Town and Primrose Hill. Can he get past the security guard at the Roundhouse, where he once walked a tipsy Tennessee Williams to his car?

Author Rie Qudan: Why I used ChatGPT to write my prize-winning novel

Sympathy Tower Tokyo attracted controversy for being partly written using AI. Does its author think the technology could write a better novel than a human?